For the first one, I interpreted what the magus said as "Oh, wait, I remember. Gen's being a stupid idiot and refusing to talk to Sophos, so he can't just say what he wants, because that would be too helpful." I don't think there's much beyond that.
For the second one, this is the most confusing part of the book, for me. I think that, under different circumstances, Sophos might have been content to make an alliance with Melenze, or accept his barons' demands and the Mede's advisors. He would have avoided the violence he had to instigate as well as the resulting Mede invasion, and if he'd acted compliant he might even have avoided the assassination he predicted a couple years down the line. But Attolis and Eddis couldn't let him do that. They needed him to rule Sounis, not as a vassal of Melenze, not as a puppet of the Medes, but as Attolis's vassal. To get him to expel the Medes from the country and convince all his barons to follow him, Sophos had to resort to intimidation tactics. He wouldn't have done it normally, but it was Attolis who made him feel like he had no choice, and it was Eddis who picked the numbers of soldiers to send him back with, which were small enough that he couldn't just use military might to win the day. So they feel guilty for forcing him onto the particular path he took. (My view of this is still smoky, so if anyone else can explain it better, I'd like to read it, too!)
As for the third, I think it has something to do with the earlier lines, before the oath-swearing ceremony.
Gen: "You shot the ambassador?" Sophos: "You gave me the gun." Gen: "I didn't mean for you to shoot an ambassador with it!" The magus: "Oh, how our carefully laid plans go astray." Gen: "You shut up!"
Basically, I think it comes down to the idea that Gen, despite all his cleverness and manipulation, couldn't predict what, exactly, Sophos was going to do with the gun. Even Sophos realizes that it's a really bad idea to shoot an ambassador, so surely Gen couldn't have been expecting him to do that---but he does it anyway, and when Gen says, "Why the heck did you do that?" Sophos just shrugs and says, "Hey, it's partly your fault, you know. You gave me the gun," and they laugh at the irony.
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Date: 1/11/11 10:27 pm (UTC)For the first one, I interpreted what the magus said as "Oh, wait, I remember. Gen's being a stupid idiot and refusing to talk to Sophos, so he can't just say what he wants, because that would be too helpful." I don't think there's much beyond that.
For the second one, this is the most confusing part of the book, for me. I think that, under different circumstances, Sophos might have been content to make an alliance with Melenze, or accept his barons' demands and the Mede's advisors. He would have avoided the violence he had to instigate as well as the resulting Mede invasion, and if he'd acted compliant he might even have avoided the assassination he predicted a couple years down the line. But Attolis and Eddis couldn't let him do that. They needed him to rule Sounis, not as a vassal of Melenze, not as a puppet of the Medes, but as Attolis's vassal. To get him to expel the Medes from the country and convince all his barons to follow him, Sophos had to resort to intimidation tactics. He wouldn't have done it normally, but it was Attolis who made him feel like he had no choice, and it was Eddis who picked the numbers of soldiers to send him back with, which were small enough that he couldn't just use military might to win the day. So they feel guilty for forcing him onto the particular path he took. (My view of this is still smoky, so if anyone else can explain it better, I'd like to read it, too!)
As for the third, I think it has something to do with the earlier lines, before the oath-swearing ceremony.
Gen: "You shot the ambassador?"
Sophos: "You gave me the gun."
Gen: "I didn't mean for you to shoot an ambassador with it!"
The magus: "Oh, how our carefully laid plans go astray."
Gen: "You shut up!"
Basically, I think it comes down to the idea that Gen, despite all his cleverness and manipulation, couldn't predict what, exactly, Sophos was going to do with the gun. Even Sophos realizes that it's a really bad idea to shoot an ambassador, so surely Gen couldn't have been expecting him to do that---but he does it anyway, and when Gen says, "Why the heck did you do that?" Sophos just shrugs and says, "Hey, it's partly your fault, you know. You gave me the gun," and they laugh at the irony.